She was aware of Mr. Shepperson ambling up.
"Nice evening," said Mr. Shepperson.
"Yes," said Anne. "I'm looking for Mr. Adair."
"I think you will find him in the rhododendron walk. He was on the lawn when I came out, but he hurried off. A pity," said Mr. Shepperson. "I should have liked a chat. A charming chap, don't you think?"
Anne gulped. At such a moment, this sort of thing was not easy to bear.
"Very," she contrived to say.
"Most attractive. Dinner is late, is it not?"
"I'm afraid there has been a sort of upset."
"Dear, dear," said Mr. Shepperson, who wanted his spinach, and Anne resumed her purposeful prowl.
The light in the rhododendron walk was dim. Steep bastions of flowered bushes shut out the afterglow, leaving only above the mossy path a canopy of spangled blue. But the visibility was good enough to enable Jeff to identify Anne, as she entered it, and all unconscious of the impending doom he hastened to meet her, scarcely able to believe that such good fortune had been vouchsafed him. His spirits soared, and he immediately started to buzz.
"What an extraordinary thing," he said. "I was just saying 'Come into the garden, Maud,' and here you are. Some people would call that a coincidence, but I should put it down to will power. You don't know how the rest of it goes, do you?"
"The rest of what?"
"'Come into the garden, Maud.'"
"No, I don't."
"I thought everybody knew 'Come into the garden, Maud.' When they educated you privately, I'm afraid they scamped their work. You should have gone to Roedean, where you would have been filled right up to the brim."
Anne was conscious of a feeling that the scene was developing along the wrong lines.
"I didn't come to talk about poetry."
"Never mind why you came. You're here. That's the great thing."
"I have something to say to you."
"And I have all sorts of things to say to you. We'll have one of our long, cosy chats."
Anne tried again. "My uncle---"
"God bless him!"
"—was talking to me just now, and he said something which came as a great shock."
Jeff nodded sympathetically.
"He has his coarse moments. But a fine old English gentleman, none the less."
"Will you listen!"
"I'm listening."
"He told me he had been in your room---"
"Quite all right. Tell him to treat it just as if it were his own."
"He looked round."
"I should have said pear-shaped."
Anne's foot began to tap on the mossy path. She was wishing the light had been better, so that he could have seen her face. Its expression, of a malevolence calculated, she felt, to excite remark and questioning, would have enabled her to get down to essentials more rapidly than she appeared to be doing.
"If you would not mind letting me finish---"
"Of course, of course. Go ahead."
"Thank you. My uncle happened to be in your room the day you arrived here. There was a book on the table by the bed. He picked it up, and looked at the fly leaf."
Jeff's exuberance waned a little. He regretted the carelessness which had led him to leave a book, which was evidently going to turn out to have had his name in it, within arm's reach of a Parker so notoriously nosey as the sixth Viscount Uffenham. He began to understand what had given him the impression at certain points of this conversation that Anne was not her usual cheery self.
"Oh, yes?" he said warily.
"It had the name 'J. G. Miller' in it."
"Oh, that one?"
"What do you mean?"
"It was that book I borrowed from Miller, was it? I must remember to return it. Thanks for reminding me."
"Not at all." Anne's voice was very soft and gentle, the voice of a girl who is amused at an absurd misunderstanding. Her fury had given way to a strange calm, like that of a boiling kettle which has come to the height of its fever. "So it was just a book you had borrowed? I thought for a moment that you might be J. G. Miller."
"No, no. My name is Dalrymple. Geoffrey Dalrymple. Adair is, of course, only a trade name."
"I see."
Anne was silent for a moment. She glanced up at the sky, as if wondering why lightning did not proceed from it and scorch this man to a cinder.
"So your name is Dalrymple?"
"Dalrymple, yes. But keep on calling me Jeff."
"And Mr. Miller is a friend of yours?"
"Oh, rather. Known him for years. A splendid chap."
"Really?"
"But I'll tell you something about him. He's a buzzer. What I mean is, he talks a lot. And you mustn't judge him by what he says. If he loved a girl, for instance, she might be misled into thinking his heart wasn't really in the thing. She might imagine he was just kidding, because he prattles away in a buzzing sort of spirit, saying this and that but never really getting down to brass tacks. She might even think he was a bit too pleased with himself. But it's really shyness."
"Shyness!"
"You wouldn't think it, but I'm very shy."
"I thought you were talking about J. G. Miller."
"So I was. One gets confused. But he and I are very much alike."
"You have my sympathy."
"Eh?"
"Because I think J. G. Miller is the most detestable man in existence."
"Oh, come! There is no vice in J. G. Miller. His heart is the heart of a little child."
"Indeed? How about the way he behaved to Mrs. Cork's nephew? Perhaps he told you about that?"
"You mean that case? Pennefather versus Tarvin? Yes, I seem to remember him mentioning it."
"I thought you might. So your name is Dalrymple?"
"Didn't you say that before?"
"It seems so odd."
"Odd?"
"Yes. There must have been a misprint in the programme."
Programme?"
"Of the England and Scotland football match at Twickenham last March."
Jeff started.
"You weren't there?"
"Yes, I was. That was where I saw you before. You were playing for England, and the programme said your name was J. G. Miller."
Jeff was obliged to devote a moment or two to reflection.
"I see what you mean," he said, at length. "This rather explodes the Dalrymple theory."
"It does, doesn't it?"
"Perhaps I had better come clean."
"If you think it necessary."
"I am J. G. Miller."
"Yes."
"Yes. Fancy you being at Twickenham that day."
"Yes."
"Good game, didn't you think? We were lucky not to lose. Tough eggs, those Scottish forwards. I was sore for weeks afterwards. I don't know why it is, but education at Merchiston, Loretto, Fettes and such establishments seems to bring out all that a man has of boniness of knee and the ability to kick cavities in the rib structure of the opposition talent. I don't know how well you understand Rugby football, but I was what is known as a scrum-half. It fell to me to fling myself on the ball when the blighters wheeled and came away with it at their toes. In future, I shall collect old china."
Anne's foot was tapping the moss again.
"I wish those Scotsmen had killed you," she said, speaking between clenched teeth in a way which would have extorted the admiration of Mrs. Molloy, who was a specialist.
Jeff had begun to recover some of the old Troubadour ease of manner. He was telling himself that, while the outlook was beyond a question unsettled, all might yet be well. Men, he reminded himself, had gone through worse than this and come out on the other side. An instance of this had occurred in his first thriller. There, the heroine had broken off all relations with Inspector Purvis because she had been told by a one-eyed Chinaman that it was he who had murdered her brother. She had stated in an impressive scene that she would never speak to him again or, for the matter of that, even think of him without
a shudder of abhorrence. Yet all had come right in the last chapter.
"Perhaps my uncle told you that I am engaged to Lionel Green?"
"He did, yes. I was appalled."
"Indeed?"
"Utterly appalled. If you read the reports of the case of Pennefather versus Tarvin, and studied my remorseless expose at all carefully, you will know by now the sort of chap Stinker Green is."
"How dare you call him that?"
"Everybody did at school. And not without reason. I tell you, there was many a sensitive lad at the old Alma Mater who wished that Lionel Green had been educated privately."
The things which Anne wanted to say in response to this outrageous statement were so numerous that she found it difficult to sift and select. The one she chose was not too good.
"Don't be idiotic! Lionel is always taking baths."
"He has a lot of leeway to make up."
There came to Anne the feeling, which had so depressed Mr. Molloy, of being in the presence of one who knew all the answers. If the path on which she stood had been harder, promising more impressive results from such a gesture, she would have stamped her foot again.
"No, no," said Jeff. "You mustn't dream of marrying Stinker Green. We shall find you someone better than that."
Anne decided to be cold and biting. "You, perhaps?"
"You take the words out of my mouth. How about it? I love you. I loved you the moment I saw you. But, of course, you know that. Your uncle told you."
"Yes, he told me."
"I don't know what he said, but however strongly he put it he didn't exaggerate. Nobody has ever loved anyone as much as I love you. It couldn't be done."
Anne thought it would be better to be brisk and practical. She had just remembered that there was another message which she had come to deliver.
"I haven't time to stand here, talking nonsense," she said. "I only came to say I knew who you were and to tell you that you had better leave as quickly as you can."
"Leave?" Jeff's voice was plaintive. "People are always telling me to leave. I don't want to leave."
"Well, you'd better. The real Sheringham Adair is here. I left him with Mrs. Cork. He had just finished explaining who he was. She is looking for you."
Jeff was silent for a space. He seemed to be turning this over in his mind, as indeed he was. Even a calmly resourceful young man like himself could see that it had complicated matters. The situation thus created was unquestionably of the type which Mrs. Molloy would have recommended him to try on his pianola.
" I thought I had better warn you."
"It was a kindly impulse."
"Have you ever seen Mrs. Cork on the war-path?"
"Not yet."
"You soon will."
"She is annoyed?"
"A little."
"She resents my having deceived her?"
"She does."
"I shall have to explain."
"How?"
"I shall tell her the truth."
"Can you tell the truth?"
"I did, when I said I loved you. 'Ah, Mrs. Cork,' I shall say---"
"With a light laugh?"
"With a fairly light laugh. 'Ah, Mrs. Cork'---"
"You got as far as that last time."
"'Ah, Mrs. Cork, I am told that you are a little steamed up about my coming here with my papers not quite in order. But I feel sure that you will understand and sympathize when you know the facts. I love Anne Benedick, Mrs. Cork, and I had to come because I couldn't stay away from her.'"
"You think that will soothe her?"
"It should. All the world loves a lover. And there's another point you must not overlook. She has this ridiculous idea that you are infatuated with Lionel Green. When she finds you're not, she'll be so delighted that she will forgive all."
"Is it any use my keeping on telling you that I do love Lionel?"
"Not the slightest."
"Then I may as well go."
"But you haven't answered my question."
"What question?"
"My proposal, rather. I asked you to marry me."
"Did you? I don't remember."
"Tut, tut. The subject of your future husband came up, and you suggested that I might apply for the position. I then said 'How about it?"
"Oh? That was a proposal of marriage, was it?"
"It was."
"Well, the answer is in the negative."
"But why? Can't you see that we're affinities?"
"I hadn't noticed it."
"Then you should have done. Look at the way we hit it off right from the start. No awkwardness, no stiffness, just a couple of soul mates getting together and picking up the threads after their previous existence. We agreed, if you remember, that we must have met in some previous existence."
"When you were a king in Babylon."
"And what a king! With my pipe and my bowl and my fiddlers three. You were ready enough to marry me then."
"I wasn't."
"You were. It all comes back to me. So why you won’t do it now is more than I can understand."
Anne came to herself sharply. She saw that she had been taking the wrong attitude, and that if the conversation were allowed to proceed along these lines, she was in danger, after having come in like a lioness, of going out like a lamb.
Her plan of action at the outset had been simple. She had proposed to reduce this young man to pulp with a few incisive words, and then to sweep haughtily away and leave him writhing in shame. And she now perceived that she had allowed him to lure her into one of those light chats which had been such a feature of their association, and which she was compelled to admit that she had always enjoyed. Worse, she was compelled to admit that she was enjoying this one. Revolted to discover that she was smiling, she hardened her face and infused a stiffness into her manner.
"Well, good-bye," she said.
This struck Jeff as a little sudden. "You aren't going?"
"I merely came to warn you that Mrs. Cork was looking for you. It's for you to decide what you want to do about it."
"I told you. I shall explain the circumstances."
"If you've time."
"You think she may be too quick on the trigger to allow of reasoned explanations?"
"You'll be lucky if you're able to say 'The rest is silence.'"
"The rest is what?"
"Silence."
"But why should I want to?"
"I thought you might need a dying speech. That was Hamlet's—a character in a play of that name by William Shakespeare," said Anne, and was once more aware that this was becoming a light chat. "Good-bye," she said, calling herself to order again.
"No, don't go," said Jeff. "I want to talk to you about this private education of yours. It strikes me as having been very spotty. You confess to being unfamiliar with 'Come into the garden, Maud,' and yet you seem to have chased Shakespeare up a tree, where you can get him any time you want him. I must probe into this. What are the principal rivers of England? And it's no good saying 'Hides, tallow and hemp,' because that's not the answer."
"Good-bye."
"I wish you wouldn't keep saying 'Good-bye.' Did you have governesses? Or were you educated by your uncle?"
"I am not going to stay here talking to you. I don't want to talk to you. I'm furious with you. After the abominable way you behaved to Lionel---"
"I did put it across him, didn't I? How he wriggled and twisted beneath my piercing glance! If it hadn't been for the referee blowing his whistle all the time and putting me off my stroke, there would have been no Lionel Green left in that witness box—just a small spot of grease. And serve him right for telling people I wore bed socks."
"What?"
"That was the loathsome story he spread about me, when we were boys together. It took me years to live it down and become the hero of the school. By the way, did I ever tell you how I became the hero of the school?"
"No. And I don't want you to."
"It was during the great football
match of the season against St. Ethelberta's, a girls' school in the neighbourhood who were our deadly rivals. It was nearly the end of the game, and we were leading by the narrowest of margins. Then all of a sudden their captain broke loose with the ball under her arm, a large, spectacled girl called Flossie, and no one between her and the goal line but me. The question naturally arose ' Will J. G. Miller prove equal to this emergency?' and all through the crowd it was recognized as a very moot point. Well, to cut a long story short I didn't. I let her through, and she crossed the line and we lost. I shall never forget that day."
"And that made you the hero of the school?"
"Of the other school. Of St. Ethelberta's. But let's get back to your private education. Did your uncle attend to it?"
"No."
"A pity. He has some good ideas."
Anne gave a sudden start. She was facing the entrance of the rhododendron walk, and in it, silhouetted against the evening sky, there had just appeared a large woman, accompanied by a small man. The light, though dim, was good enough to enable her to identify them, respectively, as her employer and Mr. Trumper.
"He told me I ought to kiss you," said Jeff.
His voice shook a little. He was conscious of a strange breathlessness. All through this conversation, he had found himself becoming more and more attracted by the elder man's views on the way in which a woman should be wooed. It needed but the merest trifle to turn him into a wholehearted convert.
"Oh!" cried Anne. "Here she comes!"
Jeff looked over his shoulder, and saw what she had seen.
"Yes," he said. "There she spouts."
He drew in his breath sharply, like Inspector Purvis. His mind was made up. Mrs. Cork's arrival, he saw, had simplified everything. He had been planning to explain to her that it was his love for Anne that had brought him to Shipley Hall, and now there was no need for tedious verbal explanations. She should witness an ocular demonstration which would convince her of the position of affairs.
Anne uttered a wordless cry. She recoiled, but not far enough. To a man trained in boyhood to make flying tackles against the finest talent of St. Ethelberta's, she was still within easy reach. The next moment, Mrs. Cork, sailing up like a great galleon moving into the battle line, halted abruptly, wondering if she could believe her eyes. Then a squeak from behind her told her that Mr. Trumper was believing his.